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The Amazing Evolution of Diablo's Barbarian

Some see them as savage brutes who think nothing of plowing a spiked mace into the face of anything foolish enough to stand in their way. Others like to think of them as a noble people who live by a code of honor. Regardless of your feelings on Barbarians, in one form or another they've been with us every step of the way during our late-night click fests with Diablo. So sharpen your axes and practice your Warcries as we examine the evolution of my favorite character in the Diablo series: the Barbarian.

The Warrior (Diablo, 1997)

Strength: 30 |Dexterity: 20 |Vitality: 25 |Life: 70 |Mana: 10

Good old-fashioned sword-and-board combat.

First there was the fish that grew legs and pulled itself onto land. A short while later, there was the original Diablo's Warrior, the master of all things melee in the first game's holy trinity of classes. Although his kind has yet to make a return appearance as a playable character, his traits helped lay the groundwork for his Barbarian descendants.

This proto-Barbarian is strong enough to wear a variety of heavy armor types and is deadly with a sword, but he's a relative weakling when it comes to two-handed weapons -- the Warrior actually needs to use both hands. He has one distinct advantage, though: the ability to use magic. Granted, it's not a lot of magic, but at least he's capable of casting basic spells like teleport, town portal, and Wall of Fire. He can also wield a shield effectively for good old-fashioned sword-and-board combat, and his repair skill comes in handy for fixing busted equipment and turning it around for a profit.

No foolin', the Barbarian exists in the Diablo: Hellfire expansion -- you just have to know where to look. The developers (fun fact: Hellfire was made by Synergistic Software, not Blizzard!) apparently toyed around with creating a new Barbarian class, getting as far as building a set of stats and abilities. For whatever reason he didn't make the cut -- his essence was banished from the final version of Hellfire and entrapped in an obscure text file. With a few magical tweaks you can unlock him and restore him as a playable character.

This secret Barbarian is essentially a modified Warrior -- he even borrows the same character sprites -- but when he uses his enhanced strength to pick up a huge two-handed weapon with one hand, and uses it to cleave (an attack that would later appear in Diablo 3) multiple enemies in a wide arc during a 12-second fit of stat-boosting Rage, there's no mistaking him for his calm, weakling twin.

But man, is he dumb. For starters, he can't seem to figure out how to use shields and bows effectively, so sell 'em if you've got 'em. He also lacks any magic ability whatsoever. Sure, you could equip some type of gear that grants some magic or mana bonus, but that'd be a waste -- the Barbarian's strength lies in, well, strength. But this also means he can never learn the town portal spell, so expect a lot of TP scrolls to take up valuable inventory space.

The Barbarian officially arrived with Diablo 2, completely replacing the Warrior as melee expert and bashing things with a unique physical fighting style all his own. He carries over the ability to wear heavy armor, but he distinguishes himself right out of the gate with the ability to dual-wield one handed weapons and a powerful default Bash attack that knocks enemies back -- and the ability to use magic.

Unlike the Hellfire Barbarian, all of this guy's his best moves are fueled by mana. Notables include Whirlwind, which transforms him into a spinning Dreidel of doom with axes flying everywhere, and Leap, which can rapidly close the distance between him and a distant or fleeing enemy. Pairing an attack with a Warcry ability can effectively turn him into a support character during co-op games by temporarily boosting the armor of party members with Shout, or intensifying damage with Battle Cry to make short work of difficult enemies.

On top of that you've got your choice of Combat Masteries (weapon specializations), letting the Barbarian adapt to a variety of builds and playstyles, such as a Horker Barbarian that specializes in looting gold, or the Executioner Barbarian that specializes in one-hit kills.

When the Lord of Destruction expansion came out, Blizzard showed a lot of love for the Barbarian in particular. Not only did it feature the Barbarian city of Harrogath and a Barbarian Warrior hireling, but it also introduced Rune Words -- when Runes are placed in a certain order on socketed equipment, it gives these items an even more powerful bonus. For Barbarians, one of the most popular "words" is Beast, which grants a significant bonus to attack speed and damage.

Barbarian (Diablo 3, 2012)

Strength: 10 |Dexterity: 8 |Intelligence: 8 |Vitality: 9 |Armor: 10

Bash: an oldie but a goodie.

Although the Diablo 3 Barbarian was conceived as being the same individual from Diablo 2, it turned out to be too much of a narrative hurdle. After all, he'd be the only playable character with memories of the previous encounters with Diablo, so his story would be much different. Still, he looks the part. So what can we expect to see in this incarnation of the Barbarian?

From the beta, we know he can still dual-wield weapons and that his overall base attributes are fairly consistent (proportionally, even if the numbers are lower) with previous appearances. Once again, the area that undergoes the biggest change is his power source: the Mana orb has been transformed into the Fury orb.

Now with Fury, the Barbarian's attacks can be summed up into two simple categories: Fury generators and Fury spenders. Some examples of generating attacks are Bash (making a return appearance from Diablo 2) and Cleave, which attacks multiple enemies in a wide arc -- similar to the Hellfire Barbarian's ax attacks. Once enough Fury has filled the orange glowing orb, the Barbarian can spend this power on special attacks like Hammer of the Ancients, which brings down the hammer on a group of enemies in one giant smash.

It's Hammer of the Ancients time.

Also, instead of building a specific Barbarian type from the ground up, like you may have done in Diablo 2, the new Skills will allow players to swap around different powers (after they're unlocked) to better adapt to different enemy types or playstyles without having to create a new character. In addition, all of the different Skill Runes that you can unlock will have different effects on these attacks. Editor's Note: Adjusted the information about Diablo 3's Skill Rune system. We mistakenly referred to them as Runestones.

There's certainly a lot more to Diablo 3's Barbarian than that, but we'll have to wait and see what Blizzard has up its sleeves for the higher-level abilities. And given Blizzard's habit of tweaking and expanding its games, both through expansion packs and patches, it's only a matter of time before he mutates again. We can only wonder what the next step of his evolution will bring.

Spy Guy says: This evolutionary progression is interesting indeed. If we extrapolate out based on current trends, by the time Diablo VIII rolls around in 2055 I predict the Barbarian will have evolved into a being of pure energy. What's your favorite version of the Barbarian so far?